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About Dark Fall Lights Out
Dark Fall Lights Out Many lives have been lost on the lethal rocks surrounding the harbor town of Trewarthan. Mysteriously, a thick fog covers the land and the silence is shattered by the sound of a ghostly foghorn. Suddenly, the faithful light of Fetch Rock Lighthouse is plunged into darkness. Follow Benjamin Parker, a young cartographer, sent to map the area, and Polly White, a ghost hunter determined to make contact with "the beyond," as you explore the Lighthouse in four different time periods. Use supernatural investigative techniques and realistic ghost hunting gadgets to reveal the evil presence that threatens Fetch Rock. Together you must defeat the evil that hides in the mist and uncover the mystery of Lights Out. 'Dark Fall: Lights Out Review ' Information Reviewer: William Hartley Developer: The Adventure Company Publisher: XXv Productions Reviewed: PC Genre: Adventure UK Release: 24th Sep 2004 Article Date: 17th Nov 2004 Difficulty: Hard Retail Price: £19.99 Price Comparison: Overall Score: 60% Dark Fall: Lights out is the sequel to Dreamcatchers Dark Fall: The Journal. This time the story is set in Cornwall in 1912. Your character, Parker, is a young cartographer sent to map out the Cornish coastline around the harbour village of Trewarthan. Upon your arrival, you encounter great hostility from the townspeople, especially when inquiring about Fetch Rock Lighthouse. As a deep fog rolls in, the lighthouse suddenly goes out, leaving fishermen at sea in peril. When Parker sets out to solve the mystery, he uncovers a sinister secret. At first I found the game very frustrating and disappointing. It is played in exactly the same style as “Myst” and just about every other game from The Adventure Company. And that can only mean one thing, those slideshow graphics. You click to move in a direction indicated by the cursor as you move the mouse around. The mouse also tells you when you can interact with objects. In a few scenes some of these were pointless, did I really have to pick up that red bottle, look at it slightly enlarged and click it again to put it back down? The whole navigation in the game does seem a little clumsy due to the slideshow presentation, one step left, and one step forward, one step left to look at an object then half a dozen clicks to get back to where I was, clumsy. The actual scenes are quite nice though and the designers have obviously done their homework on historical Cornwall. As I said, at first disappointing and frustrating but then I started to get into it. This is purely down to the exquisite plot. Without spoiling too much you find yourself blamed for the death of three lighthouse keepers and must explore your surroundings through multiple time periods gathering evidence where possible so you can unveil the true murderer. The story is quite interesting and involves travelling to various time periods, both past and future, to solve the mystery of what is actually happening. The way you move forwards in time and then backwards allows you to get very different accounts of what people think, and that’s the magical ingredient. With this being a Myst style adventure you can also guarantee somewhere you’ll have to solve some pretty difficult puzzles along the way. The puzzles in the game are quite difficult. You have to explore every corner of every scene and some clues are easy to overlook, things hidden behind rubbish bins for instance. Some are also fairly cryptic and I wouldn’t consider a walkthrough cheating, more an aid. The story is driven mainly by finding diaries, books and journals which tell of events in the present and the past. There is a definite atmosphere about the game and some parts are genuinely spooky due in large part to the things that are heard but not seen. It’s a shame the game isn’t more interactive though, on the few occasions you meet other people there is very little interaction, one is just an eyeball through a keyhole. One for fans of old fashioned ghost stories with a Sherlock Holmes mentality. I think Dark Fall Lights Out will still appeal to a very specific group but is certainly more mainstream than the usual release from the Adventure Company.